


Recurrent Dreams

by Allekha



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Background Victor Nikiforov/Yuuri Katsuki - Freeform, First Meetings, Gen, Haircuts, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29274006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: Lilia has seen Victor's highs and lows at the Olympics through the years.
Relationships: Lilia Baranovskaya & Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 14
Kudos: 23
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Recurrent Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elstaplador](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/gifts).



**2002**

They have just returned from Euros and they are soon to leave for the Olympics, which means that tensions in the rink are as high as they can get. Three of Yakov's skaters are on the Olympic team, one man and two ladies, who work as hard as Yakov will allow them, chasing the last dregs of conditioning and perfection that they can achieve. Those who are not going stare after them sometimes; there are undercurrents of jealousy among everyone old enough to compete for the spots despite the smiles and the jokes.

Lilia finds these last days before the Games tiresome. She had enough of this stressful atmosphere in the ballet world when it came to promotions and coveted roles, and she has had enough of it in her work with Yakov. For once, she almost prefers the children, full only of joy and longing, starry-eyed and deep in their own Olympic dreams.

Still: she will not leave her students, on the floor or on the ice, to face down such pressure with no support. So she leads them through their dance lessons and lectures them about stage fright and tries not to let their stress follow her home.

She is speaking with Yakov near the end of one evening session – very much looking forward to returning to their apartment, having a hot meal, and talking about anything other than judges or scores or medals – when she notices one of Yakov's younger skaters hovering. Victor, she knows from Yakov's yelling. He's a skinny adolescent with big eyes and hair that either needs to be cut back or allowed to keep growing. When their eyes meet, he smiles and skates forward.

"Yakov, can we play our music?"

He sighs, turns to check the clock, and nods. Victor zooms off, catches the arm of a dark-haired boy, and drags him over to the music player.

"The two of them got so excited by the Olympics that they decided to have their own competition," Yakov explains. "Something about who can copy a program they like better than the other." He shakes his head, but there's fondness in the way he glances at them.

Lilia only bothers watching because all the skaters she works with are off getting in some last-minute spin practice or doing cool-down exercises. Victor waits impatiently at one end of the rink before the music starts and he jumps into action. It's _Don Quixote_ , a familiar piece to her. Not thirty seconds into it, Lilia realizes – that pose with his arm curved over his head, that little jump where he clicks his heels together, the cut of the song: this is a program she knows.

It's one of her favorites, and also very much before his time. Yakov must have shown it to him as an example, she thinks as he skips across the ice. Watched it with him, like he watched it with her decades ago. Yakov had retired in favor of coaching but hadn't yet had Olympic students. She had curled into his side the first time she saw this, eyes on the television from the comfort of a couch and the warmth of his arms.

Victor does not nearly measure up to the skater he is copying. Of course he doesn't; he's a teenager, not an adult man with years of dance to go with his skating practice. Victor has the coltish quality of someone whose brain hasn't caught up to their limbs yet, his posture needs work, and his blades are explosive but jerky across the ice.

And yet. She can see how badly he is trying to make that same graceful magic happen, and there are small ways in which he succeeds. He struggles to recreate the beautiful positions in his spins. There is lightness in his body when the music grows cheerful. He keeps his gaze cast high as though he is surrounded by a crowd. For a young skater, it is a decent go at ballet.

When the music is finished and he gets up from his kneeling end pose, he jumps around the ice, laughing, waving at his audience of Georgi and a couple of bored older rinkmates. And Lilia. And Yakov, who is gazing at her from the corner of his eye.

Yakov is talented at spotting potential, but he always values her opinion. And whoever knows with the younger ones, but it is true that her attention is caught on Victor's smile.

"I'll make a program for him for your summer show," she says, making the corner of Yakov's lips quirk up. She'll create something simpler for that better suits his current abilities. A program that will give her a better idea of how he might grow.

Maybe he will never make an Olympic team, through lack of effort or lack of luck. Or maybe he will properly learn those ballet movements he is imitating, and all the jumps Yakov grumbles about him rushing, and one day win a gold medal of his own. Perhaps he will even do it skating to her choreography.

One day, one day. Lilia doesn't have time for that now. She spares one more glance for Victor; he catches it and waves at her as well, his bright grin lighting up his whole face.

**2006**

Victor has not stopped vibrating with excitement since they arrived for his first Olympics. He's breathless after practice, all sincere smiles for interviews, and a complete chatterbox at any given moment. It's exhausting to keep up with, if endearing at moments.

Which is why Lilia grows concerned when, as she combs Victor's hair into place before the free program, he is quiet. It's not like him from the past few days – not like him at competitions at all.

She gives him a few minutes to be with his thoughts, but as she wonders if she should broach the subject, Victor glances up at her in the mirror. "Lilia?"

"Yes?" He starts to fidget, and she clicks his tongue at him; he stills enough to let her finish wrapping his ponytail.

"Do you think I can win?"

She slides in the last pin and meets his eyes in the mirror. It's not a nervous question; Victor has every right to be nervous, but he isn't. His stare is intense. When she settles her hands on his shoulders, she can almost feel the desperate hunger behind it.

There are people who come to the Olympics knowing that they will never win a medal. Victor, dark-horse newcomer though he might be, is not one of them. And nobody who has a chance for the podium arrives without a deep determination to climb it, any more than a dancer joins the Bolshoi with the aim to remain in the corps.

Lilia had her heart set on her prize from the very beginning of her career; Victor's is already near enough to grasp.

She digs her fingers into the back of his shoulders, drawn tight with tension. "Yes. If you skate cleanly, you have a chance to win."

Victor is young, yes, but his talent is astonishing. Dance doesn't come to him as naturally as it does to some of the other skaters she teaches. Despite that, he takes her corrections easily, and he has an inborn charisma and love for performing that makes up for some of his shortcomings. Yakov complains about him talking back too much and whining about practicing the boring things, but he does enough of the basic work and jumps with a frightening fearlessness.

He will probably not be the most heart-wrenching artist when he skates, nor, she thinks, is he planning the highest level of sheer technical difficulty. But as much as Lilia's heart is most taken with the pure artists, there is something incredibly pleasing about those who, like Victor, have the skill to put both together into one performance of wonder. She's excited to see it.

"However," she continues, "if you skate like this, there is one thing you will be lacking."

"What?" demands Victor, his eyes going even more wide and serious in the mirror.

That is exactly his problem. "Do you remember what you said to me after you did the first complete run-through of your free?"

Victor's determined face cracks after a moment into a smile. "That it's my favorite program ever and I really love it and it's perfect for me?"

"That," she declares, patting his shoulder as she lets go. His grin widens. "That is what you need to have the strength to win. Draw on that feeling and nobody will be more lovely than you."

Yakov has more words for him when they return to him – he's better at managing, keeps Victor calm instead of working himself up again – and too quickly and too slowly, it is time for Victor to skate.

Even after all these years of competition experiences, there is a spark of useless nerves in Lilia on his behalf as she watches him glide out, her part done with until the music is finished. Yakov is not an anxious coach, but the Olympic stakes are so much higher than elsewhere, and as he occasionally does, he takes her hand and grips it as the music starts.

Beside her, Yakov breathes in as Victor turns in to his first jumping pass – he leaps up, quadruple toe loop, land, pick, triple toe loop, double loop like an easy afterthought, glide, stable, good extension – and he breathes out. Both of their hands relax. There is nothing to worry about. Victor is smiling and wonder shows in his face.

It is the performance of his career. Afterward, after he has waved at the screaming audience and bowed to the judges and danced about on his toepicks, he ignores the flowers thrown at him to toss himself straight into Yakov's arms. In the kiss-and-cry, Lilia smooths down his mussed hair with pride and hands him tissues for his tears of joy at his score, well-deserved.

There are two skaters after him. He is guaranteed bronze. Then silver. The last man goes; he is impressive, but he does not have Victor's spark, and Lilia wills the judges to see that.

They both hold his shoulders and watch as the last score comes in—

Victor collapses into sobs, covering his face and melting in Yakov's chest. Lilia pats his back, letting Yakov do the real fussing, and glares at any camera that get too close. He deserves to have this moment without them pushing in on it. He put all of his joy and his training out there on the ice today to get this result, and she could not be more proud of his efforts.

Seventeen. Good god, he's only seventeen and he already has an Olympic gold medal – and he has not peaked. She was not yet in her best form when the Bolshoi accepted her as a soloist on graduation, not when she first danced the starring roles she had yearned for. Victor, too, has more grace and glide to find for himself, more delicate artistry, that quadruple flip that makes Yakov tear his hair to hear about.

What kind of beautiful beast will he become in four years, in ten? She is so curious to watch him bloom even further under their combined guidance. Who knows how much higher his scores can go, but numbers are not what makes her heart beat quick.

Victor pulls away from Yakov and turns to her. She pats away his tears with a handkerchief and, for once, lets him throw his arms around her as well. "You did just as I told you, Viten'ka," she murmurs, too low for the cameras to hear.

He laughs into her shoulder, bubbly. "It was really, really fun!" He steps back; there are red blotches on his cheeks from the tears, but his eyes shine.

And then he turns, as he must, to the cameras, to the journalists eager to interview the lovely young champion, to a world watching him by the millions.

**2010**

This time around, Yakov has his hands full managing not just Victor but also Georgi at every practice; the two of them smile shallowly at each other and act polite. They are not so friendly as they used to be, and Lilia doesn't blame them. She lost friends to the bitterness of jealousy at her career's rise. They are quite different people, besides. Victor is lively and sociable with everyone, while Georgi is more contemplative and at least thinks he is more serious, though they do share their flair for silly dramatics.

(Somehow Yakov's students always do. Lilia has long since given up trying to train the ones that come to her out of it.)

She handles Victor when Yakov is busy elsewhere, making sure he is on time to every interview and practice and meal break. The journalists hardly let them breathe, all curious as to whether the pretty young champion will claim his title a second time. Lilia sneaks Victor chocolates and doesn't let the microphones have a second more of his day than is scheduled.

The night before the short program, she takes a break for herself, going out to eat with a couple of choreographers she knows and an old friend who has flown out to attend the Games. When she returns to the room, Yakov is missing. Taking time for himself as well, she thinks, just before her phone dings.

The message is from Yakov, asking her to come to Victor's room. Lilia sighs – what, is he bouncing off the walls? Jittering about the exact placement of his second quad toe loop again? She slips back into her shoes and walks over. Yakov is the one who lets her in.

He closes the door behind her, too, and good thing, because for a moment, Lilia is so shocked she can't move. Victor isn't dancing around the limited floor space or chattering about his layout or worrying through some movement over and over; he's sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes reddened.

His hair is short.

It's a mess, too, totally uneven, like someone hacked it off with a pair of dull kitchen scissors. Lilia stares, and stares, and – did _he_ do this? Surely nobody has attacked him if Yakov hasn't already called the police.

Yakov steps around her to sit with him, putting an arm around his shoulders. Victor's hands twist together and he looks like he might start crying again, but his gaze doesn't drop away from hers. He jumps when Yakov clears his throat.

"Is there anything you can do to...."

He doesn't say _fix it_ , and no, she can't do that; it's not just a haircut that's gone wrong here.

But she can make him look presentable. So she goes and fetches the tiny hair scissors she keeps in her travel bag just in case of split hairs or impossibly tangled hairpieces, wondering all the while what on Earth has happened. When she returns, Victor is looking marginally less miserable, and Yakov is looking at his phone.

"Nastia's having a bad night of her own," he says, wincing as his phone pings at another incoming message.

He glances at Victor, who produces the weakest smile she's ever seen him wear. "I'm fine, you can go look after her."

Lilia hopes that Georgi has found himself an early sleep or a pretty girl to woo, so that at least one of Yakov's students will be having a good night and not require him. At least she can take Victor. She nods at Yakov, who sighs and leaves with one last pat to Victor's back.

Victor is very quiet. He doesn't say anything as she tells him to bring the desk chair into the bathroom, or as she sits him down in front of the mirror where the lighting is best, or as she drapes a towel around his shoulders and stares down at his hair. She is no expert hairdresser, but at the least, she can make it even.

"Sorry," Victor says while she contemplates where to start.

She glances up at the mirror before raising her scissors and taking the first snip. "What are you apologizing for?"

"You're mad at me."

"And you think that because...?"

His face twists in confusion; it's better than the dejected look, at least. "Because I cut my hair...?"

There is a grain of truth to that; she liked how it looked, how Victor always laughed at the nasty comments about him not being the right kind of men's champion and won his medals anyway. "It was very pretty the way it was," she says. Victor has never blinked at her using words like _pretty_ for him. That can't be why he's done this. "And I liked how it was unique among the other men. That being said, it is your hair. If you wanted to cut it, however, there are professionals you might have gone to. And yet you are crying in your room and chopping it off." She combs a section down with her fingers before she snips again. "I'm not upset with you about your _hair_ , Vitya."

He fidgets in the chair, though he keeps his head still. Lilia cuts a little bit at a time, doing her best to bring it into order. There's enough length left for a somewhat neat bob, which should go well enough with his programs and the long bangs hanging over one eye, unless he wants it even shorter.

She doesn't say a word; the sound of the hair in the blades of the scissors is loud in the silence. Victor doesn't like quiet.

It doesn't take long for him to start talking again. "I had to change _something_." Lilia responds with a raised eyebrow. "Even I know I can't change my programs _now_ – and they're good, I like them! – and I can't make my face different, and it's too late for new costumes, and... but I could cut my hair. I don't know if I should have, but there was nothing _else_."

She reaches for the comb on the counter and drags it through his hair slowly, making sure it doesn't pull. "What do you mean by change? If you didn't like your costumes, it's not like you to not complain."

"It's not that I don't like anything!" He drags his hands against his face. "But all the stupid journalists and all the fans, and everyone else, it's like they're all saying 'let's see if the budding prince can win against his older rivals once more!' and 'young Victor fights elders to retain Olympic crown' and – I'm not a teenager anymore! I'm an adult, I have my own apartment and I go to university and even the United States will let me drink now, but it's like they all still think I'm the same unaging fairy-tale kid that will do exactly as they expect and—"

He throws himself dramatically against the counter, head on his folded arms. Lilia closes the scissors on empty air and looks at him. "You wanted an image change now that you've grown up," she summarizes.

His head shifts on his arms. "I guess. Yeah."

Victor the successful young man instead of Victor the prodigious, youthful newcomer. It's understandable. The dramatics are not. "You might have _said_." It's not like Victor hasn't been experimenting with his programs – the ones this year are nothing like his ones at the last Olympics – or been increasingly more involved with his costume designs.

He peeks up into the mirror. "I think you once told me... what was it... you say a lot of things! But it was something like, you have to control how other people see you or it will control you. I didn't get it until now. Everything's just been a lot lately."

"This is why Yasha tells you to go to him _before_ things become a problem, so that he can help you rather than let the media or your emotions crush you," she scolds. "Mature adults know when to ask for help." She pauses, then allows: "Although I was just as stubborn about it when I was your age."

"Really?"

"In my case, I ended up crying from stress in the bathroom the nights before important performances rather than cutting off my bun, but yes. And I will tell you, it is much preferable to rely on your connections with others for support. The bonds we create strengthen us, just as a rope of many strands is stronger than a single thread. Which is why we we would never send you to a competition alone."

Victor's mouth crooks up. "That, and Yakov doesn't trust me not to do something stupid with my jumps if he's not there."

"Undoubtedly," she says dryly, tugging on his shoulder. "Now head up, and let me finish."

She returns to cutting when he straightens for her. There isn't too much left to do to make it workable. "Thanks," Victor says.

Lilia nods in acknowledgment. This is not how she wanted to spend her night, but at least she has found out what is wrong, and Victor should be brighter tomorrow, more motivated to show off the image he's trying to make with his programs. As she finishes evening out the sides, she says, "Now that you've gone and cut it, you might as well make good use of it, since you like your surprises so much."

"I've been putting it under my hat at practice anyway," Victor muses. "The rink's so cold here, Lilia, I don't know how you two don't freeze when you're not even moving."

"We do," she says, which makes him laugh. A small one, but it's a start. "And your team jackets have a hood... I wonder if you could keep it a secret all the way to your short program? It would be nice to hear the judges' pens hitting their table right before you skate."

"Lilia!" gasps Victor, faux-scandalized.

She sniffs. "One of them gave you a _seven_ for your choreography at Euros," she says. There was no reason for it; he had skated perfectly well. His performance of _her_ choreography is not worth _sevens_. "And what have I told you is the best form of revenge?"

"Excellence," Victor says promptly. She pats his shoulder as she goes around him to check the other side.

In the end, she cuts his hair a little shorter, at his request; he touches the strands and makes a strange face. Perhaps he'll come around to it when the shock wears off and he's had a visit to a real hairdresser, though she wouldn't be upset if he grew it out again and wore it differently instead. It doesn't look bad short, but it is quite a change.

"I'm going to have to spend the whole summer thinking about how to make whatshisface mad about me again next season," Victor laments, leaning in to the mirror. "He always said mean things about my hair being girly. I'll have to choose some really provocative music, or... ooh, he hates sparklies, right? With my medal winnings, I can afford a costume that's _all_ crystals!"

"Diamond, rubies, or emeralds?" Lilia asks, her mind going to the ballet _Jewels._ They once took Victor to see it in New York after an assignment at Skate America. "Emeralds would suit your coloring best."

"But the rubies have the sexiest costumes," Victor counters. And oh, there's the spark in his eyes that's been missing all night. Lilia takes the towel from his shoulders to shake it out and, for once, is glad to hear him chattering about what he might do next season.

**2014**

For the first time in decades, Lilia watches a competition entirely from the stands.

She and Yakov are no longer married, and this year she has not choreographed a single program; she has no place by the rinkside. If the Olympics were anywhere else, perhaps she would be watching it, once again, from a couch in Moscow, curled up with a mug of tea instead of with a lover.

But Sochi is not too far to go, and Lilia has the money to buy herself the best seat she could want. She doesn't bring flowers or flags, only herself.

It's quite the competition. Georgi has a pair of programs that are perfectly like him, dramatic and mysterious by turns. The Thai boy doesn't score high, though Lilia finds his performance better than some of the top men for sheer personality and joy. The best Japanese competitor startles her not just with how well he matches and listens to his difficult classical music, but the fact that Minako Okukawa, of all people, shows up in his kiss-and-cry.

And of course, there is Victor: bold music choices, costumes that sparkle like geodes and float like clouds, blades flashing as gold as the medal he inevitably wears when all is done.

He is as brilliant as ever – even more polished than the last time he was on Olympic ice – and yet as the arena thrums with the joyful screams of her fellow Russians, something strikes Lilia. Maybe it's the way he stares up after his free skate before he takes his bows, or smallness of his smile when his score is announced, or the way he doesn't wear one at all as he mouths the anthem during the victory ceremony.

It bothers her all the way to her hotel room. That evening, Lilia picks up and puts down her phone several times. Victor is no longer her student; it doesn't seem like any of her business.

But he still holds a strange place in her heart, forged not only in the studio but in the years where he boarded with them when travel arrangements and his parents became too difficult, the early mornings they walked quietly together with his dog, the times he has come to coffee with her in Moscow since she left. So she finally opens her phone and scrolls down to Yakov's name.

It's hardly used. On the rare occasion they need to be in contact with each other, they send emails. Mostly, it's the legal issues that come from untangling decades of marriage or the odd distantly professional message. He called her once when her sister passed away.

Email feels too formal for something like this, and of course it's not urgent enough for a phone call, especially when they hardly speak. So SMS it is.

 _What is wrong with Vitya?_ , she writes, then belatedly: _Congratulations_.

There is no response right away, which she expects. If Yakov does reply, it will be after he has dealt with the media circus that presses in on the Olympics. She puts the message from her mind and goes home to Moscow.

Several days later, she checks her phone to find _What do you mean, what is wrong with him?_

She taps the side of her phone. She feels silly about the impulse to ask, now that some time has passed, and yet the question has been posed and cannot be taken back. _He struck me as unhappy_.

Ridiculous. Anyone's third Olympic medal ought to make them overjoyed, even if the shine has worn off after the first two. Perhaps she is reading too much into the way he stared at the flags from the podium. But the Victor she knows has always been so cheerful, save for the odd moment of depression. He flourishes before crowds and under attention.

It is some minutes before Yakov writes back, and she has to dry her hands of dishwater to read it. _He won't talk to me_. It is only text, but she can hear the frustration dripping in his voice; it would be far from the first time Victor drove him to it. Even when he wasn't secretly cutting his hair, he was always worrying at layout of his programs or sleeping in too late at competitions. _It's been a long year. Maybe he's tired of it all. I told him to take a good vacation this summer._

Simple exhaustion would make sense; no doubt Yakov has to sneak him into the rink right now, since he's apparently intent on a third Worlds title in a row. Lilia, who hasn't coached him in years, finds herself deleting emails from journalists begging for a statement about him to raise him up even further.

If it is something deeper than that, then, well, that is Victor's problem to solve and Yakov's duty to help. Lilia had her days, and she overcame them in her own way. She told Victor, once: "Artists who do not find the strength to recreate themselves are dead."

But Victor is not weak, and she knows he could develop himself even more. He is still young and there are roles left for him to try on to stretch himself. If the constraints of competition wear at his inspiration, he could retire now and fill the audience for a show without trying.

She sets aside her phone to make tea, and hopes for his sake that it is just exhaustion. That Victor will return next season with new programs – he is starting to come into his own as a choreographer, his themes stronger and his arrangement more innovative the more work he produces – and with the glow about him that belongs there.

**2018**

Lilia finds herself once again backstage, her eyes wandering between three close competitors for Olympic gold as they prepare for the deciding free skate: little Yuri, going through the motions of his program like a firecracker under Yakov's eye; Yuuri, a new favorite of hers, stretching with a bit of help from Minako; and, of course, Victor.

He and Yuuri stopped pausing to make eyes at each other twenty minutes ago. He and Yuri have been more professional than friendly for the past two weeks – coolly on Victor's part, awkward on Yuri's. Yakov is determined that the media not put them at each other's throats, but best-friend-rivals is a narrative they seem to prefer for the women, so a strained tension it is.

She would be delighted if the winner was Yuri, her newest project. There is more raw determination in him than she has seen in anyone, and when she finds a flaw in him, he attacks it ruthlessly – the corrections do not always come easily, but Yuri stubbornly makes them come as he shows again and again that he can create himself anew as many times as needed.

She would be happy if it were Yuuri, who has that old-fashioned artistry everyone decries the sport for leaving behind. Sometimes she wishes that Minako had never put him in skates, with the pure talent he has for movement that would make him a sensation on the stage, but the way he works from the first minute to the last of every ice session shows where his love lies.

And if it were Victor—

He is fussing with his hair in the mirror. Though he left behind the braids and buns long ago, she goes over and helps to smooth it down the way he wants.

This will be his last competition. She was not surprised to hear it; he is twenty-nine, and that is a long run in this sport. People talk, not kindly, about the ones who compete past thirty. If Victor weren't still so unquestionably dominant, doubtless there would be grumbles about him continuing to take GP spots. No one has use for dying swans on the ice, when they could have a new cluster of cygnets to admire.

Lilia helped mold him from an imitation of a dancer into a real one, with proper carriage and extension and an understanding of how to move himself. She guided his obsession with putting together terrifying jumps and beautiful spins and lovely movements into something more than the sum of its parts. They have spent so much time working together on his perfection, hours upon hours of corrections and questions and Victor smiling and doing, for her, mostly as he was told.

If he caps off the career he has poured his life into with a final victory, she will be glad for that, too.

Victor thanks her in a murmur when she gets his hair to lay right; his eyes go in the mirror not to her face, but to Yuuri's.

He didn't come back from that summer vacation with his missing cheer. It didn't return to his face until he came back with Yuuri. It's odd not to see them clinging to each other. The few times they've competed against each other have been strange ones.

Victor's mouth turns up. "I would be prouder than I've ever been if he won," Victor says, quiet enough that only she will hear it. "And I'd be upset to lose, too. How can I just be happy for him if that happens? I'm already dreading it."

At least he's asking ahead of time, now; he's learned. "It can be difficult even in the theater," she says. She's always admired the skaters for constantly putting themselves up to the stress of numerical judgment – she never had to wait in front of the public to hear if her thirty-two fouettés were a 5.9 or 6.0 after dancing Odette/Odile – but the implicit competition among dancers can take its toll on relationships, too. "There's a reason I married a figure skater. I had my dance, he had his – then he became a coach, and we discovered we could make something together, too."

Teaching is its own art; she learned from Yakov's early mistakes, and he let her at choreography before the Bolshoi did. His skaters, then their skaters. The judges noticed. The world did. The pride Lilia feels when her students show the best of themselves has never diminished.

"The two of you have made something together, too," she says. "His skating is not the same as it was before, and neither is yours." It's not in his curves and edges, not in his axel combinations or toe jumps; she can simply feel the way he enjoys himself again. Light and love, he once told her over wine. "But you are still a competitor. Your skating is something that comes from you. Of course you would hate to lose; it means that you still have pride in your own work."

"I don't want it to come between us," he admits.

She crosses her arms and looks at him, not in the mirror but beside her. It's not an unlikely fear, as they've already had a few ups and downs before her eyes. "Then be happy for him when you need to be happy for him. Be resentful when you need to work through it until you can shed your anger like an unnecessary layer. Or give it ten years. I don't recall every time I was passed over for the role I most wanted."

Victor nods. His eyes drift again in the mirror to Yuuri. Everyone's gaze has always been drawn to Victor; now he has someone of his own to stare at.

"I know you love him," she says. "So do him the courtesy of giving him a fight. Neither he nor Yura would thank you for a victory he didn't win honestly. The two of you will shine brilliantly if you both give it your all for what you love. Each other, and," she taps his cheek, "your skating. I know you've already put it there in the program. I watched you work it over until it said exactly what you wanted it to say. I'd like to see it done properly."

The smile he gives her is not the wide one that first caught her eye all those years ago. It's not the restrained one he puts on for the judges. It's not the sweet, soppy thing he wears around Yuuri every day. It is small and honest and fond.

"You always have had advice for everything," he says with a chuckle. "Okay. I'll show you all of the love I have."

He checks his hair one last time, then goes to start warming up. Yakov nods at her before making his way over to him; Yuri starts looking around for her, so she goes to supervise. His own set of worries and loves, and an aching desire for gold, feels about to burst from him. She directs him through an exercise and a few stretches, helping him to keep the energy contained until it's time for him to spill it out over the ice. He will need all the focus he can muster for the free skate.

Victor is no longer her responsibility for the event, and her focus switches to supporting Yuri; but she is glad when she happens to glance over Yuri's shoulder as they leave for the group warm-up, and catches the mirror's reflection of Victor's smile.


End file.
